Wednesday, September 26, 2007

The new look-and-feel of Orkut is not at all appealing, not just to me but to everyone I talked to about this since the change. When all their competitors are coming up with new features everyday, all they could do was to put more colors wherever possible (and brighten the already used colors making it even worse). On this occasion I thought of writing what all I miss on Orkut:

1) Search in scrapbook: There is no doubt that the highest % of time spent on Orkut is spent on scrapping friends and other "wanna be friends". This is clearly led to exchange of information over scraps and where there is information, it needs a search tool. Though I think allowing searching through others scrapbook will be a security threat but searching on own scrapbook will be a real treat.

2) More number of Photos: Why in the world have they limited the no. of photos to 12? With Googles resources in place, there can't be a problem in terms of digital space available to them. When facebook is recording huge no. of images to be uploaded and MySpace buying photo sharing platform Photobucket, this is surely a big drawback. Also, I see a lot of "New pics uploaded" screen names, clearly indicating how much time we spend on checking others snaps. For me, this is the second highest activity I spend my time on (first is of course, scrapping).

3) Fan: Its too much trouble to become someones fan. Suppose I'm visiting a friends profile and I want to become his fan. The only way I can do this, go back to my profile, go to manage friends and then search him and then become his fan. (And with people changing their display names its tough to find, on a no. of occasions I couldn't :( )

Why can't there be a marking area in each of my friends profile? Simple? Isn't it?

Since past three years, when I joined Orkut, I haven't seen many big feature additions. A small poll app, or a blog or a change in their news section won't will make the road ahead tough and tough.

4) Messages: The most important of all the messaging in Orkut is almost useless due to the unlimited SPAM. I've seen a number of other sites where messaging is the strongest means of communication and I hardly read my messages on Orkut. This seriously needs to be revamped. Everything about it sucks as of now.

5) Communities: Many surveys have shown in past than most of the users (including me) have joined communities just show their interests/attributes and very few are actually active on them. Tagging would have done this for me. They seriously need to think some way to make it more useful.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Not long ago, during the college placements, while interviewing for a company one of my friends cleared all the tough initial rounds and was just left with a HR interview.

When we came out after the HR interview, he couldn't believe he didn't get the job. On asking, he explained to us what happened. (He actually didn't know why he didn't get the job). The "relevant" part of the interview:

HR: Why do you want to work for Sybase and not Googles/Yahoos/Microsofts?Friend (Being completely honest): Actually sir I tried, but couldn't clear their interviews.HR: OK, fair enough. But why not Oracle?Friend: Actually sir, I don't want to work for a database company.

HR started laughing and I suspect he must have told him: See you soon, may be.

Those of you, who still don't know why he didn't get a job: Sybase is "actually" a Database company.

Watching the following video made me realize how much I've missed being in a institute with YouTube banned. Sigh!

Q: Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the United States on a world map. Who do you think this is?

A: I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as in, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq and everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children.

Friday, August 31, 2007

We run court cases for 14 years, convict the criminals and then set them free in few days. Yes, I know the media will have once again have an happening day when Dutt Sahab once again goes back to jail but the reason for which he is out is simply ridiculous.

Today another celeb got bail. I don't know if they committed the crime or not. But if they were in there that means there was something they did wrong. Why does declaring someone guilty takes years and getting a bail takes just a few days? I'm not advocating to forcefully make getting bail a longer term but can't be make some effort to shorter the time it takes to solve a case.

With Sibhu Soren acquitted just because “the prosecution has miserably failed in bringing home the charges against the accused persons.” I feel sad. Still media would put their effort in finding out whether Sanju Babu has visited toilet since morning or not than to cover Hyderabad blasts.

Monday, June 25, 2007

A friend of mine who is 30 touching but in his words still most eligible bachelor in his colony has lately developed a strange habit. Whenever he sees a temple (and is difficult to reach), the first expression from him is:Chalo yaar madir chalkar, "sawa rupee" ka parsad chadate hai. Bhagwanji se ek "hot babe" ki request karni hai.[Lets go to the temple and make our offerings to god with 1.25 Rs and ask for a hot babe]

I could not resist myself long enough and had to tell him this one day:Aree "sawa rupee" mein hot babe to chhod, hot babe ka wallpaper bhi nahin de payenge tere bhagwanji.[U can't even get a wallpaper of hot-babe in 1.25 Rs]